Time to find out how Duke Energy got pass

Published: Thursday, March 20, 2014 at 01:55 PM.

In 2013, a group of environmentalists planned to sue Duke Energy to clean up over three dozen coal-ash dumps which were polluting the ground and groundwater in North Carolina.

Duke Energy did not want this financial burden so it sent out lobbyists to the North Carolina Legislature for help, under the guise that this would damage the economy.

Long story short, our legislators approved a 330 word provision in a regulatory-overhaul bill which allowed Duke to avoid any costly cleanup of the contaminated groundwater leaching from its unlined dumps toward rivers, lakes and the drinking wells of nearby homeowners.

We now know that a bigger spotlight was cast when, on Feb. 2, a Duke dump spilled 85-plus tons of toxic waste into the Dan River, coating 70 miles of river bottom with sludge. The Dan River supplies drinking water to N.C. and Virginia. This week we were informed that Duke Energy workers were caught on camera by Cape Fear Riverkeepers dumping sludge from a containment pond into the Cape Fear River.

I would like each of you to ask our state legislators — Sen. Harry Brown, Reps. Chris Millis, George Cleveland and Phil Shepherd — to explain why they allowed this to take place.

Quite frankly, I don’t give a tinker’s damn about politics when it comes this this issue. What I do care about is our beautiful state, our water — which is our most valuable resource — and future generations.

In 2013, a group of environmentalists planned to sue Duke Energy to clean up over three dozen coal-ash dumps which were polluting the ground and groundwater in North Carolina.

Duke Energy did not want this financial burden so it sent out lobbyists to the North Carolina Legislature for help, under the guise that this would damage the economy.

Long story short, our legislators approved a 330 word provision in a regulatory-overhaul bill which allowed Duke to avoid any costly cleanup of the contaminated groundwater leaching from its unlined dumps toward rivers, lakes and the drinking wells of nearby homeowners.

We now know that a bigger spotlight was cast when, on Feb. 2, a Duke dump spilled 85-plus tons of toxic waste into the Dan River, coating 70 miles of river bottom with sludge. The Dan River supplies drinking water to N.C. and Virginia. This week we were informed that Duke Energy workers were caught on camera by Cape Fear Riverkeepers dumping sludge from a containment pond into the Cape Fear River.

I would like each of you to ask our state legislators — Sen. Harry Brown, Reps. Chris Millis, George Cleveland and Phil Shepherd — to explain why they allowed this to take place.

Quite frankly, I don’t give a tinker’s damn about politics when it comes this this issue. What I do care about is our beautiful state, our water — which is our most valuable resource — and future generations.

I have a feeling that their response will echo that of Rep. Tim Moffitt of Asheville, chair of the House Regulatory Reform Committee that crafted this bill. When asked this month how Duke’s provision was inserted, Moffit said he had no idea.